But sometimes I say to myself, ‘There, Afri-cans are fighting, dying and I am doing not h-ing, My life is sheltered in the heart of this cityof stone… - Véronique Tadjo

Here there are no griots, only poets. You think that you are leading an extraordinary life and that people see you as you would like them to. You adorn yourself with your writing. It becomes your identity, your bread and butter, and your reason for living. You begin to believe in what people say. You become locked up in your creation, become submerged in words, and sentences suffocate you in the solitude of your retreat. They make you forget the blood and the dust.

It's only when we work together that we can defeat such threats to humanity. So I think that I would really, really like to see more solidarity within each country and across countries.

We were here to last. We were here to spread our shade over the remotest lands. We were here so our foliage would murmur the secrets of the four corners of the world. But human beings have destroyed our hopes. No matter where in the world they are, they wage war on the forest. Our trunks crash to the ground with a sound like thunder. Our naked roots mourn the end of our dreams. You cannot destroy the forest without spilling blood.